A matter of Time
by Red Baron A.K.A. Crowley
Summary: Gavroche gets sent back in time to Montfermeil by a madman with an oddly familiar name, falls in love with the younger cosette there, and generally causes chaos and screws up the timeline. Did I mention time travel?
1. Gavroche gets tunnel vision for cheese

A matter of Time.

Gavroche gets sent back in time to Montfermeil, falls in love with the younger cosette there, and generally causes chaos. Did I mention time travel?

A NOTE ON MY USE OF ARGOT: While I will attempt to use argot where applicable, I have been unable to find any dictionary of French argot, and only a poorly sorted one of English argot. For this reason, until I find a better one, the only French argot used will be what I remember from the book, the rest being from the English argot dictionary I found and what little I know of cockney rhyming slang.

Gavroche walked by the abandoned cheese shop that had closed down a few years ago because the cashier had been shot by a man quite irritated that they had no cheese. It hadn't been particularly successful before then anyway, primarily due to the fact that it had no cheese. Gavroche had had no breakfast that day. He had had no breakfast the day before. 4 days before that, he'd been shot by national guardsmen and wounded to the extent that it made him stop singing and briefly pass out, although they'd healed up shortly after the barricade fell. This was becoming tiresome.

There was a legend among the gamins that the shopkeep had kept his most precious cheese in the back, unwilling to sell his horde to the masses. However, none of the gamins had investigated this rumor because loud bangs and flashes of light occasionally came from the shop, and they feared that it was either haunted or had a formidable automated defense system that no one had bothered to turn off. Gavroche was hungry enough to risk it. He wrenched a heavy board off the door and broke what was left of a windowpane with it.

He walked through the main chamber of the shop, climbed the cashier station, and pushed open the door to the back. He walked through it. It swung shut behind him and locked. This was part of it's defense system. Gavroche neither noticed nor cared. He felt his way along the walls of the corridor, looking for cheese, eventually finding another door. He opened it. It was filled with blue light. Gavroche looked behind him to make sure that he hadn't missed any cheese, and continued on to the next room. The source of the blue light was a sleek looking white machine, being tended to by a man with his back turned, frazzled hair, and a white lab coat. It was giving off some purplish light as well, but the majority of it was blue. Gavroche pondered this for some time, but hunger won out and he began scanning the room for cheese, still retaining some small hope that the legends were true, and that a vast cheese reserve had been left behind. Eventually, he knocked over a bucket to see if there was any cheese under it, which attracted the attention of the man, whom the reader has doubtless surmised to be a mad scientist. He turned to face Gavroche, a crazed look on his grease stained face, his eyes open wider than one would think practical. "So!" He cried excitedly "We meet again Mr. Bond!" Gavroche was clearly confused. His name was Gavroche Thenardier, not Bond. And even if his name had been Bond, how would this stranger know it? This briefly lead Gavroche on a train of thought wondering whether this man was able to psychically discern a person's name before remembering that he hadn't gotten his name right "Look me china plate, I've got no fight with you. I just want some cassan (cheese) and I'll go." The scientist either didn't understand him or didn't hear him, and fired back No Mr. Bond. I expect you to die." With this, he flipped on his machine, which engulfed Gavroche in purple light until he vanished. The madman took some cheese out of a nearby crate and ate it.


	2. Time travel ensues

Gavroche blinked at the purple light dazzling his eyes. Then suddenly there was more light. He was looking directly into the sun. He shielded his eyes with his arm and turned away. He was uncertain as to how he'd gotten outside. He assumed he'd had some kind of seizure on seeing the purple light, that someone hoping to buy the former cheese shop had come in to survey it, defeated the madman and carried him outside. He had somehow failed to notice that it was the past. In light of recent events, and also in light of not being sure what part of Paris he was in, Gavroche deemed it unwise to find the cheese shop and renter it. He was in a fairly open area, possibly a park of some kind, and saw a bit of a cluster of buildings in the distance. Strange. He couldn't remember a park with buildings in it anywhere in Paris. He walked toward it, figuring he could get directions to the general vicinity of his elephant there. After asking several very unhelpful people for directions, he received a "Stupid gamin, that's in Paris." This confused him. He sought out the town hall intending to read the bronzish plaque above it. It informed him that he was in Montfermeil. Hoping to find a map, he entered the town hall, and instead quickly found a calendar. At first, he assumed that the town was so backwater that it had to reuse calendars, but it slowly dawned on him that that made absolutely no sense. Therefore he concluded that he had traveled back in time. He was unfazed. All this meant to him was that he was hungry in a small village 9 years ago. In some strange way, he decided that this meant that he was not hungry at the present. This briefly had a psychosomatic effect on his hunger and his first priority became to seek out a map. After roughly 30 seconds of searching, he found a large one on the wall. He wasn't actually that far away from Paris compared to where he could've been, but he didn't want to walk that far on an empty stomach. This got him thinking about food and he became hungry again. He decided to find an inn, hide in the kitchen, steal some food and see if he could sleep in a closet without being noticed.

Lathrop E. Browning was irritated. He couldn't find the person he'd sent back in time during one of his formerly chronic bouts of insanity in which he either thought he was Napoleon or a James Bond villain. They had since been cured, but he had caused a massive amount of damage to the timeline before they had. Shortly before the first incident, he had created a time machine. He'd gone insane before showing it to anyone, and started jumping about the timeline into any secluded building or area, which he either began making a diabolical lair or thought was the Imperial Palace. He'd rather liked the last one. There had been a lot of cheese. The astonishing damage he'd done to the timeline had shown him that the world by no means needed time travel, and he now kept his invention intact only so he could attempt to repair the damage he'd done. He knew he'd sent somebody back here to early 1823 Montfermeil, but he was having great difficulty finding them. Then he stepped on an ant, panicked because he'd altered the timeline and began running around until he hit his head on a tree, thus rendering himself unconscious, and accidently activating his time machine as he fell, transporting himself to his 2099 home. When he came too, he didn't remember anything past arriving, and assumed that he must have succeeded.


	3. The Land of Opera

Gavroche was gradually getting hungrier. He slipped into the inn with a practiced quiet and care, but was spotted anyway. Upon seeing him, the innkeeper launched into some kind of production number and put his arm around him "Welcome monsieur, sit yourself down, and meet the best innkeeper in town!" Gavroche was taken by surprise and was swept over to a chair and placed in it against his will. "As for the rest, all of them crooks, rooking the guests and cooking the books!" He was sure the man reminded him of someone, but he couldn't figure out who. "Seldom do you see, honest men like me, a gent of good intent, who's content...to….be…" here he turned away and began singing to an audience no one else could see, although Gavroche noted that everyone seemed to be cheating in the direction. "Master of the house, droning out the charm, ready with a handshake and an open arm!" Gavroche watched in utter bewilderment, and eventually many of the drinkers joined the man. Eventually he began singing about how much the food here sucked and ran into the kitchen, followed by his entourage. Gavroche was so confused that he just sat there for a minute. By the time he gathered himself, the man had emerged, was singing about overcharging for rooms, and again ran upstairs with the chorus. Gavroche took advantage of the moment to sneak into the kitchen.

There was someone else in here singing, but her voice wasn't overly and artificially jovial. It was quite sad in fact, and Gavroche found it beautiful. It was singing about some kind of castle on a cloud. Gavroche found this a bit farfetched, but then he remembered that he'd just traveled back in time 9 years to the land of opera. He forgot his need for stealth and applauded at the end. She jumped. Gavroche, immediately knowing himself to be found out, stood up and greeted her. "Hi there" he said, for lack of anything better crossing his mind. "Hi" she replied. Gavroche was lucky she hated her board keepers and "Employers" because if she'd been an actual paid hand, she would have yelled to the Thenardiers that they had an unauthorized guest in the kitchen. As it was, wishing to get back at the Thenardiers for everything they'd done since she'd come into contact with them, she said nothing. "You're a very good singer." Gavroche said, hoping to be able to make some conversation before the inevitable "I haven't eaten in 3 days can I have some food?" The girl looked confused, and Gavroche supposed that production numbers and solos were so hardwired in here that most didn't know they were doing it. "Never mind" Gavroche amended, hoping he didn't appear crazy. "I'm Gavroche. Who're you?" The girl felt a pang of recognition at the name Gavroche and pondered where from for a moment before remembering it was the name of that little boy her dictators had. She didn't hold the coincidence against him. "I'm Cosette." "good to meet you me china plate." Cosette asked what a china plate was. Gavroche prepared to explain argot, but then remembered that china plate was cockney rhyming slang, of which he knew little. He just kept forgetting the argot word for friend. For this reason, he simply settled on informing her that it meant friend. They talked a bit more, and eventually Gavroche felt that the tension had been relieved enough, and that he had sufficiently made her acquaintance to note that he hadn't eaten recently, and that she seemed to have some extra food lying around….. While this was the way Gavroche intended to phrase the request, it came out more like "Please, I haven't eaten in days! I implore you to grant me a nibble of your bread!" Gavroche didn't know why his impulsive and blunt phrasing had included the word implore. He figured that he was so hungry he was using words that he'd forgotten he knew. Cosette sympathized with him. After all, she wasn't just forced to go without food for days on end, she had to perform hard labor the whole time. Besides, she liked this kid. She wasn't sure why, she just did. And a missing loaf of bread probably wouldn't help her tyrants much. She grabbed a nearby loaf of bread and split it in 2, half for him, half for her. After all, she never got to eat, and this time she had an excuse. The Thenardiers had doubtless noticed that their new customer, a street urchin, had mysteriously vanished. She could blame the whole loaf on him without any additional risk of him being caught, and still get half for herself. A fair solution for all. They both finished quite quickly, being hungry as they were, and shortly afterwards Cosette started singing again. Her voice had a hint of fear to it, which hurt Gavroche a bit, but it was melodic as ever. "Oh help! I think I hear them now! And I haven't nearly finished sweepin' and scrubbin' and polishin' the floors! Oh its her!" Gavroche was confused, which seemed to be the theme of the day. Her? That rumbling voice he was hearing in the distance was female? That didn't make any sense. The gruff voice drew closer, and eventually a large redheaded woman entered the kitchen. Gavroche had wisely chosen to conceal himself at "I think I hear them now" and was well out of sight. The woman "sang" for awhile, eventually telling cossete to get a pail and fetch some water from the woods. At night. In woods that could very well be filled with murderers. Then she noticed the missing bread and started trying to fit it into her song. "What haven't we here? A…um…uh…loaf of missing…IT DOESN'T FIT! HOW CAN IT NOT FIT! EVERYTHING I KNOW IS WRONG!" That was about the point people stopped singing. Cosette would sing castle on a cloud occasionally later, but not in a daydream, but more as a performance peace. And she'd realize she was singing it. The woman stormed out sobbing, and Cossete went to retrieve the water. Gavroche found this demand highly inhumane. "Wait a minute there! I'll come with you." He offered before realizing his lips were moving. Damn it. Why couldn't he ever just leave random unfortunate kids he met well enough alone? Despite his resistance, he continued to speak. "2'll be safer than 1 out there, and I bet that pail gets bloody heavy when it's full. We may be mômes, but I bet we can lift it together!" And so he was resigned to helping a girl carry a heavy bucket through the cold night in the woods that could quite possibly be filled with murders while running on half a loaf of bread. Great. Just great.

I should not that it may be awhile before I remember to update this. Don't hold your breath. If my original work and Helm's Barricade(spoiler alert: Q, Elves, and revolutionaries) get in the way, it may be even longer. Sorry. Hope you liked it.


End file.
